We recently returned from a lovely week in Dubai. It never occurred to me that a 7 hour flight would feel like nothing, but it sure does when your frame of reference is the 18 hour flight from Newark to Singapore! We had a wonderful time with mama and baba, bro, and friends. We enjoyed long walks on the beach, all of the local delicacies (and each gained 3 lbs, ahem... ok 5 lbs), and the gorgeous weather. Who knew I would ever go to Dubai for cooler weather! Dubai continues to amaze me. The pace of construction is hard to even fathom. Imagine 50 - 60 building going up at the same time, in the same part of town! This is happening across the city which is rapidly expanding into the desert - and into the water. There is so much construction that the roads are changing daily - people may not be able to get to work the same way two days in a row due to detours.
The Burj Dubai - scheduled to be the tallest building in the world (a male envy thing) - can be seen from the house, and oh yeah - from the moon. Those of you, who, like me, are not getting rich off of all this building (despite your best efforts), can take solace in the following:
http://www.mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae8_1_4.pdf
We'll be poor, but at least we can point to the Austrian school of economics when explaining why.
Ironically, the area around the Burj already has residents living in their brand new condos in the midst of all of the construction. This part of town is officially called Old Town. Funny, isn't it?
The middle picture is of the first Palm island as viewed from the 44th floor of the Grovesnor House hotel (five bucks if you can pronounce it correctly). To the left is a shot of the Emirates Towers, and to the right a photo of the Burj al Arab at night taken from the Madinat (a huge mall/hotel/restaurant complex built to look like the old style buildings in Dubai - most of which have been demolished).
The turtle, affectionately known as "Mr. T," also reappeared and Mo - a.k.a. the animal whisperer, happily reunited with him.
Lebanese food in Dubai is our first choice of cuisine. Below is a piece of kneffe - a sweet cheesy dessert. Kamel and Jodi - we were thinking of you! I also had my first visit to BBQ Delight (a sister restaurant to a famouse Karachi establishment). The ribs and kebabs were as good as expected. mmmmm, good eats.
Whoa - here comes the thunder. We are really experiencing rainy season now. Today is the first day in the last 4 that the sun has appeared. The good thing about this weather is that it is cooler, and strangely it feels much less humid when it is raining.And with that, until next time. We leave you with this sunset on the beach in Dubai.
Love,L & M
